Not much of a graph design wise, but it does drive home the data to vaccine skeptics. Get your shots!!

A Yale-led scientific team has produced the most comprehensive family tree for birds to date, connecting all living bird species — nearly 10,000 in total — and revealing surprising new details about their evolutionary history and its geographic context. (summary article; another)

It looks like someone did an amazing amount of research into bird diversification. But I can’t really understand all of what this visualization is telling me because the original article is hidden behind a paywall at Nature.

Sometimes the best way to explain something is to demonstrate it.

At first I didn’t like it – too busy and radial diagrams are always annoying. Then I looked at the information and realized there was quite a lot there. Then I started looking at the legend and realized the information isn’t really clear. So now I don’t like it again.

I love these evolutionary causation theories.

A study published yesterday in the journal PNAS puts weight behind the hypothesis that–more than any social or environmental factor–humans own their giant cognitive leap to the ancestral chefs and proto grill masters who invented cooked food.

Why? According to the researchers, a diet of raw foods can’t support an endless growth of both brawn and brains. Larger body sizes and bigger brains both meant more energy use, which meant more time spent eating each day.

And, since no primate can sustain a daily foraging requirement of much more than eight hours (gorillas average close to eight, but sometimes spend closer to nine), our ancestors must have found some way to get more energy in less time.

I don’t know that I buy the summary argument, but viewing “time spent getting calories” as a driver of intelligence and socialization selection is intriguing.

Thanks to Will T. for sending in the link!